Scholars strike back at ‘economic impact’

Article in the Scotsman

DESPITE Labour’s promise that “education, education, education” would be its priority, when the then education minister, Charles Clarke, dismissed “the medieval concept of a community of scholars seeking truth” as “a bit dodgy” back in 2002, it became clear that the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake was judged as outmoded by our political masters.
The role of higher education has always been contested. But in recent times a war has been waged on its research remit. In the last ten years the purpose of the academy has been degraded. Universities have been turned into an instrument to improve thADVERTISEMENTe economy and create social cohesion. As a result, knowledge is compromised and students failed.

This summer, the Labour government gave up any pretence that it cared for scholarship, as the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills was merged with the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. Today, no government ministry contains the word university.

Now, in response to new proposals for funding and evaluating research that are truly a bit dodgy, there is a revolt against the demands that the academy act like a business or do social work. Scholars are striking back.

A campaign – “Stand up for Research” – spearheaded by the UK University and College Union is gathering support. A petition is growing against the latest attack on university research, this time by the higher education funding councils, which suggests that 25 per cent of the new Research Excellence Framework (REF), is to be assessed according to “economic and social impact”.

The policy proposed by the higher education funding councils lists 37 “impact indicators” that the research of top thinkers will be judged against and funded on the basis of. These include: creating new businesses; attracting R&D investment from global business; commercialising new products; improving or informing public services; improving patient health outcomes; and improving social welfare, social cohesion or national security.

This is not the language of ideas or the arts, but of short-sighted, philistine bean-counters. Watch as historians have to demonstrate how their research on the social status of Victorian children can solve the contemporary financial crisis, and as literature professors are forced to evaluate their analysis of imagery in the poetry of Robert Burns, by demonstrating that it leads to reduced rates in obesity.

Those taking a stand against this scheme are luminaries who include half a dozen British Nobel Prize-winners. Signatories such as Richard Dawkins, Professor Harry Kroto; a Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, the Astronomer Royal for Scotland, and the President of the Botanical Society of Scotland, not to mention senior scholars in the humanities and social sciences.

They are right to be angry. This proposed system is an overly prescriptive, top-down approach that follows a government line which may not correspond to the interests of university researchers, or, indeed, society.

Most new ideas do not immediately make money, many good ones never will. And research is not always “on message” whether it is on terrorism or health. Indeed, every breakthrough in intellectual and scientific thought usually challenges the prevailing order. We should resist these demands for the sake of academic freedom.

The impact agenda betrays a lack of understanding of how knowledge advances. The Royal Astronomical Society explains that funding scientific research “is not like investing to win Olympic medals, where specific short-term objectives can be set and achieved”. Instead, “science advances on a broad front and has indefinite horizons that require a long-term vision”.

As this year’s Chemistry Nobel prize-winner, Venki Ramakrishnan, who is among the signatories, elaborates: it is often basic open curiosity-driven research that has application in the long-run. DNA sequencing is a billion-dollar industry now, but scientists didn’t start out knowing that it would be.

Cyclosporin, the immunosuppressive agent that revolutionised organ transplantation, was discovered, not through a funded research project specifically addressing the problem of graft rejection, but as part of a general screening programme.

Of course, not every idea pursed will turn out to be useful or make money. But, even so, no subject is really ever useless. Or rather, usefulness cannot only be judged in terms of economic outcomes or social impact. Arts and literature research is never going to result in thousands of valuable patents, but it can open our eyes to human civilisation and some of the most profound reflections on life.

The deepest benefits of academic research are often the ones we cannot measure so easily. The results that we do not anticipate may prove to be the greatest value of all.

This impact agenda doesn’t take into account the influence of academics on the work of other scholars and does not include their influence on the students. But surely adding to the sum of human knowledge, changing the minds of other researchers and stimulating the new generation is work that really matters.

Historically, the model for the university tutorial is the classical sage in dialogue with his pupils, imparting wisdom by example and through lessons in the art of argument. The idea of “education” deriving from “educere”, the Latin for “to lead out”, was bound to the notion of character formation. This important educative and transformative relationship is ignored by this agenda. The university is the starting block for future generations to think.

If implemented, the REF impact criteria will prove costly as it risks undermining support for basic research across every discipline, from physics to Latin.

The UK funding councils should withdraw the current REF proposals. Instead, let us work with academics and researchers on creating a funding regime which supports and fosters basic research in our universities.

Universities must continue to be spaces where the spirit of adventure thrives and researchers enjoy the academic freedom to push at the boundaries of knowledge in their disciplines. Let us value speculative research, experimentation, serendipitous discovery and useless knowledge for all.

Who owns Culture?

WHO OWNS CULTURE?
Panel Discussion
Tuesday, 17 November 2009 6:30-8pm
LSE, New Academic Building, 54 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London, WC2A 3LJ

The LSE Law Department and the Institute of Ideas are hosting an event with James Cuno (President and Eloise W. Martin Director of the Art Institute of Chicago), Dr Tatiana Flessas (LSE Lecturer in Law with research interests in cultural property and heritage law), and Dr Maurice Davies, Deputy Director of the Museums Association. Dr Tiffany Jenkins will chair the discussion.

CLICK HERE for more into or to buy tickets

Artists, resist this propagandist agenda

Article on Spiked

ARTISTS, RESIST THIS PROPAGANDIST AGENDA

The relationship between culture and politics has never been straightforward. The arts have been used by leaders throughout history to bolster their status and authority, and to lend weight to concepts such as ‘the nation’. Artists, in turn, have used their talents to promote different agendas and to take sides in conflicts and revolutions. But, in recent times, this relationship has been formalised, made more explicit and prescriptive.

After the failures of the ‘war on terror’, politicians are now elevating the role of culture in international policymaking. And far from rejecting these advances, many cultural leaders – eager for affirmation and purpose – have embraced them, arguing that it is about time the positive impact of the arts on foreign relations was recognised.

Click here to read the full article

Critical thinking

Article in the THES

I spend every August in Edinburgh, immersed in the seven festivals that all take place in one month. Literature, theatre, comedy, music and art are all on show. But although one is presented with a feast of cultural riches, one question is left unanswered every year: what is exceptional and why?

There are the newspaper reviews, of course, the star system of the broadsheets and quick-fire fisking on the blogs. But much of it is short and simplistic, often nothing more than PR puff.

A good critical article – one that does more than repeat the story or deconstruct its meaning and reflects more broadly on artistic merit – is hard to find. That’s a problem, both for audiences who want recommendations, but also for a wider assessment of the works on show and their contribution to culture.

Click here to read the full article.

The Arts Council: the case for the defence

Article in the Spectator on the Arts Council.

The Arts Council is at risk. After over a decade of questionable goals and bureaucratic funding requirements, as well as the mismanagement of a series of cuts, voices have started to call for its abolition.

The past ten years have been peculiar times for the arts. Under the Labour government pots of money were thrown at culture. But strings came with this funding, requiring art to serve political ends. While there has been cash it has been less for culture and more for schemes promoting social inclusion, community issues and urban renewal.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE…

BNP’s views need to be challenged, not banned

Article in the Scotsman

BNP’s views need to be challenged, not banned

UNLESS you have been living on a different planet for the past month, you will know that British National Party leader Nick Griffin is to be a panellist on BBC1’s Question Time tomorrow night.

The planned addition to the political discussion programme of a member of a party with a fascist pedigree has created a storm of controversy. Many people, including Labour MP Peter Hain, argue that the BNP should be barred from appearing on the show.

Mark Thompson, the corporation’s director-general, has rejected Hain’s argument. Thompson stated that it was their duty “to scrutinise and hold to account all elected representatives” and that the BBC would do so “with due impartiality”.

Thompson is right. Inviting an elected MEP on to the programme should happen because we live in a democratic society, regardless of his vile opinions. The cascade of calls for censorship is illiberal.

The suggestion that members of a political party be barred from this broadcast calls into question everybody’s democratic rights.

Whether we like it or not, the BNP is a legitimate organisation. It has won two seats in the European Election and has just under 60 councillors across the UK.

As long as we operate as a representative democracy, the voters’ choice should be represented in the public sphere, whether in parliament or on the nation’s broadcaster.

Peter Hain – and others protesting against this airtime for the BNP – has an inflated view of Griffin’s powers of persuasion and towering intellect, and far too little faith in their own ability to convince others. What are they scared of?

Do they believe that the public has only to hear a few words spoken by Griffin and they will morph into a racist mob?

This treats the viewer – that’s you and me, by the way – as if we were completely gullible. The censor treats us, not as autonomous beings with rational thought, but as children who need special protection from backward ideas, by an elite who decides what we can and cannot hear.

And if people do watch and agree with Griffin, surely we should use the democratic process to mount an argument to win them over, rather than mount a boycott to silence the debate.

As the philosopher John Stuart Mill once argued, no opinion, however false, should be stifled, partly because the truth is made all the clearer for “collision with error”.

Freedom of expression is not something that you only give to people who you agree with. Just as importantly, free speech must be upheld for people who you don’t agree with.

Nor does free speech mean accepting all views as equally valid. It means having all opinions out in the open so we can challenge the ones we find distasteful and argue for those that we think are right.

It is only by debating and exposing the poor ideas of the British National Party that they can be defeated in public and at elections.

We cannot challenge bigoted ideas if we ban or hide them. Doing so lets the sentiments fester underground.

Indeed, while the BNP remains a rump of an organisation that has won very little influence in elections, making up as it does less than half of 1 per cent of local councillors, the obsession with silencing Nick Griffin has won the party undeserved front page headlines for weeks on end, and has given it the appearance of a protest movement.

The British National Party is a relatively small, incoherent and ineffective organisation, but the centring of politics and the inability of the other parties to win new members and supporters has meant that the party has become more influential than it deserves.

At the last election it won two seats in the European Parliament, but only due to the collapse of the Labour vote.

The influence of the BNP can be seen as a product of mainstream political failure. It has become a symbol of disaffection amongst voters, rather than an endorsement of any of the party’s racist policies.

That is why its votes can sharply rise and fall from one election to another, despite what the party does or says.

Not that we should be complacent, or ignore the BNP. We should address its arguments. This party keys into concerns that should be tackled in public.

And, just as we take on the BNP, we should scrutinise the policies of the other parties.

Illiberal and nasty attitudes to immigrants are not the sole preserve of the far right.

As someone who is for open borders and the free movement of people, I would like to see all the policies on immigration of all parties challenged in open debate.

Labour’s immigration policies are causing unnecessary havoc and harm, preventing immigrants from entering the country or moving around.

Bail for Immigration Detainees, an independent charity that challenges immigration detention in the UK, estimates that 2,000 children of asylum seekers are detained each year in detention centres.

They are the only children in Britain who can be locked up indefinitely without having committed a crime.

The Scottish National Party has, quite rightly, spoken out in the past against the points-based UK visa system, claiming it splits families apart because of the threat of deportation for family members who have been refused residency.

This system is due not to the BNP, but to the immigration policy of the Labour government.

The immigration issue needs to be prised open, not shut down. All political parties need to be put under pressure to account for their policies on the issues of race.

Calls to ban the BNP from broadcasting on the BBC makes us look scared of this shoddy party’s ideas, when we can easily confront them.

This is not about the right of a collection of far-right cranks to have their time on the telly. It is about the right of the rest of us to make up our own minds and argue back.

Museums for world peace?

Museums for World Peace?
Wednesday 21 October 2009, 18.30–21.00
Tate Britain, London

Cultural diplomacy’ is in vogue. The idea is that museums, galleries, libraries, art, theatre and music can play a critical role in international relations. The think tank Demos recommends these institutions address terrorism and conflict in the Middle East, and work to enhance relations with diasporas. Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, argues that the museum, its staff and collections can play a role in state-building and promoting peace and stability internationally, as well as helping those who visit in Bloomsbury to understand and appreciate other cultures. It is argued that in the context of a world that is experiencing a dramatic resurgence in nationalism and sectarian violence, encyclopaedic museums can play a positive role in encouraging understanding and tolerance between cultures.

But can culture really ease international conflict and foster tolerance? Or does looking to old objects to find messages of tolerance for today meaning obscuring the contemporary reasons behind conflicts? Does assigning cultural institutions such a role risk undermining their more traditional goals, or even compromise their scholarly objectivity? What kind of relationships should Western cultural institutions have with their counterparts abroad, and to what purpose? What role, if any, can and should museums play on the international stage?

Speakers:
Dr. Stephen Deuchar, Director of Tate Britain
Dr. Tiffany Jenkins, sociologist; Director of the Arts & Society programme at the Institute of Ideas
Jonathan Jones, Art Critic of the Guardian
Andrea Rose, Director of Visual Arts at the British Council
Tim Stanley, Senior Curator, Middle East at the V&A, as well as the principal author of Palace and Mosque: Islamic Art from the Middle East
Claire Fox, Director of the Institute of Ideas and panellist on BBC Radio 4’s Moral Maze

Click here to book tickets

Public service reform a threat to cultural assets

Article in the Scotsman

THE future of our museums and galleries is at risk, threatened by the Public Services Reform Bill, currently before Holyrood.

Now in committee stage, it could give the Scottish Government unprecedented powers over heritage and arts organisations, turning over historical protections designed to ensure the permanent safety of the collections.

The legislation, introduced by John Swinney, the finance secretary, is designed to reduce and streamline the number of public bodies in Scotland, aiming to create greater efficiency, by placing them under various umbrella organisations. The brolly for culture will be Creative Scotland, due to be established in the first half of 2010.

Part two of the bill gives Scottish ministers the wide-ranging power to make any provision which they consider would improve the exercise of public functions. It will allow changes to be made to public bodies through a Statutory Instrument, instead of, as now, under primary legislation.

Statutory Instruments are subject to very little parliamentary or public scrutiny, unlike primary legislation which is better interrogated. In effect, the legislation will give greater and new powers to government over public bodies and – through Creative Scotland – national collections, with limited examination.

Joint evidence, recently submitted by National Museums Scotland and National Galleries of Scotland, to the Scottish Parliament finance committee, which is considering the bill, warns that this would be a major change in the conception and practice of their organisations, considered independent, and one which could seriously damage their future.

National Museums Scotland and National Galleries of Scotland is one of the leading museum groups in Europe. Made up of five museums, they care for four million significant art works and artefacts from all over the globe spanning centuries, including the Lewis Chessman, paintings by Raphael, the national collection of Scottish art, and spectacular ancient Assyrian reliefs from Northern Iraq.

The submission explicitly cautions that this bill would make it possible for a government to change or remove the current restrictions against the sale and transfer of collections, and then could pressurise museum trustees to sell objects to raise funds.

Historically, museums and galleries have been kept at arms length from government. This is so these objects and artefacts are be held in trust for us – the public – in perpetuity, protecting collections from the vagaries of politics, fashion and financial pressures.

Paintings, objects, prints, drawings, photographs and fossils are kept away from the reach of politicians, so we can see them and can learn more about different civilisations. They are cared for in trust, not just for us, but for our children and their children.

On the whole, cultural organisations are only permitted to sell or exchange collections in rare circumstances, such as when it is a duplicate of another in their collection. Even this process has been tempered with a check that the decision is not detrimental to the interests of researchers and the public.

There are good reasons for such checks and limits. The role of museums and galleries is to record, preserve, research and display objects and art. They are not shops or businesses, and it is not their job to sell off items that they don’t want now, but which researchers may use to unlock the past in decades to come.

The disposal of museum collections was anathema to the sector. But, in recent times, there have been distinct moves to flog off important work. In July, Southampton City Council decided to sell valued pieces from its permanent collection: Rodin’s sculpture Crouching Woman, and Alfred Munnings’ oil painting After the Race. If the contested and controversial sale goes ahead, the £5 million they could raise will be used to construct a maritime museum commemorating the sinking of the Titanic.

This attempted sale demonstrates that, in the climate of a recession and spending cuts, selling off important paintings and sculptures proves a tempting means of raising funds. Ministers may promise they won’t, but once they have the power they may change their mind. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Evidence to the committee, by National Museums Scotland and National Galleries of Scotland, warns that potential donors might stop if they felt the guardianship wasn’t independent and that work could be sold.

Much of what is on the walls and shelves of our museums comes from private collections. They give on the understanding that the institution will care for the collection, not get rid of it.

The John Rylands University Library in Manchester learnt a difficult lesson when it sold off books in the late 1990s. Shortly after, they lost an important loan. The library has found it hard to attract donations ever since. There is no going back after a sale.

The Royal Society of Edinburgh is another of the many organisations calling for a reconsideration of the scope of the powers of the Public Services Reform Bill. They have raised concerns about the focus of Creative Scotland, anxious that it is disproportionately focused on the economic potential of the arts.

The Scottish Artists Union echoes this unease in their submission to the finance committee; warning that Creative Scotland could be aggressively commercial, encouraging the arts to be used primarily for economic outputs. This is to the detriment of art forms that don’t make money but do raise our spirits.

We cannot be too careful, for we are facing difficult times. The fallout of the economic downturn is only beginning, and will impact upon public spending, corporate sponsorship and private donations for a considerable time. Our collections could be vulnerable.

The importance of the national museums and galleries, the precarious financial climate, and the probable commercial focus of Creative Scotland, is why it is important to be vigilant, to make sure that the Public Services Bill goes no further without amendment or clarification. We should fight for the independence of our museums and galleries and keep them at arms length from government.

LETTERS IN RESPONSE TO THIS ARTICLE:
From Mike Russell
From Sir Angus Grossart

Saudis open eyes and minds with mixed university

Article in the Sunday Times

A new £6bn campus – the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (Kaust) – is an enlightened step forward.

It is the world’s most modern university in a country where attitudes to women are medieval. The King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (Kaust) is a multi-billion-pound, graduate-level campus which hopes to attract the world’s most brilliant minds and challenge western assumptions about Saudi Arabia, a country where women must cover themselves in public.

Kaust is unique in that it is co-educational. It is the only school in the kingdom where students of both sexes can mingle. In other universities, women and men are taught separately, and male professors lecture to female students via video link.

Nor will women be compelled to wear an abbayah, a full-length black garment. At the opening ceremony, a female student in modest western dress stood on stage alongside others in the robe. The audience was integrated: women were not shoved off to a corner, separated from the men, nor in family compounds, which would be normal.

I was at the opening as a guest of King Abdullah because my boyfriend is rector of Edinburgh University. We were among 3,500 visitors including heads of state and scientists from all over the world.

Abdullah, who is 85, is part of the the Al Saud family who govern the country through royal decrees. Kaust is an attempt to use the oil wealth of Saudi Arabia to diversify the economy and prepare the country for a competitive global environment. The king has also been under pressure to overhaul the educational system, which is dominated by religious studies and has been criticised for encouraging radical Islamic fundamentalism.

At the inauguration, Adbullah highlighted his goals for the university: the revival of Islamic academic excellence and the creation of a “beacon of tolerance”. He asserted that he wants Saudi Arabia to offer the world “innovations in science and technology, not terrorism”.

Saudis are conscious that their princes have sponsored Wahhabi fundamentalism in the past, which has led to accusations that they harbour terrorists. Some of the 9/11 bombers had Saudi passports. The king recently reshuffled his cabinet, ousted some hard-line clerics and appointed a woman as deputy minister of education.

Kaust is the only higher-education institute in the kingdom not to fall under the remit of the Ministry of Higher Education. It is independent and has its own board of trustees. Developed by Saudi Aramco, the state oil company, it received a $10 billion (£6.3 billion) endowment from Abdullah.

But will western students want to come here? Though it took us only eight hours to fly from Edinburgh, I realised I was in a different world when we entered the arrivals halls in Jeddah. Our landing cards announced the threat of death by execution if were caught with drugs.

Every woman in the kingdom, western or non-western, Muslim or not, must wear an abbayah over her clothing in public. They fly in, dress, and enter Saudi Arabia as if going into hiding. But they cannot slip away quietly. They need a sponsor and must be met by them on entry, otherwise they cannot cross the threshold. All women living in the country as members of a Saudi home, married or single, need the permission of the household male head before leaving the country.

Kaust is an artificial construction cut off from the rest of the kingdom. It is in Thuwal, a village on the Red Sea, and is a 9,000-acre campus made of sleek glass buildings and magnificent stone, lined with palm trees. The classrooms are practically gold-plated and the laboratories have latest technology, including an IBM supercomputer — the 14th-fastest in the world — as well as a six-dimensional virtual reality facility for space and geological research.

Many members of the faculty are prominent academics from Asia, America and Europe. About 375 students — 100 Saudis and the rest from 60 other countries — recently started their studies. Tuition is free, paid for by the kingdom, and Kaust is clearly a top-notch research institution of international repute.

Despite the highly managed environment, it became clear from talking to Saudis at the university that this is an important and exciting step for those who want a more liberal regime. At the launch, many Saudi women still kept themselves to themselves, and it was only in the ladies’ bathroom that we spoke. I stood alongside them in a serious but optimistic conversation, while they adjusted designer jeans, before they re-robed and slipped silently into the shadows of the ceremony banquet. Clearly, this trip gave me only a glimpse of a private and complicated world.

It remains to be seen what knowledge will develop, whether there are scientific breakthroughs and what impact Kaust will have on Saudi Arabia. But while there are problems with the structure and organisation of the society which cannot be ignored, it is a small, enlightened step forward. I hope this oasis isn’t a mirage.

We can handle the collecting of Nazi relics

Article in the Sunday Herald

The suspension of Marc Garlasco, by Human Rights Watch, for collecting German wartime memorabilia, is sinister and illiberal. Yes, we may find the celebration of Nazi objects distasteful, but no one should loose their job because they keep war relics in their cupboards. Where would it stop? Would you fire someone for collecting Communist party insignia because of their associations with Stalinism?

Some of the best museums in the world are full of curious artefacts due to people like Garlasco. Our knowledge of the past is deeper due to collectors who are – let’s face it – obsessive and odd. You might want not to have them around for dinner, but you would enjoy poking about their houses.

If we don’t collect material from the past, regardless of its connotations, there is a real danger that history is cleansed of its darker episodes. Instead of hiding from the Nazi period we should look it in the face. Artefacts from the historical period expose the mindset far better than a text book, a point that applies no matter how offensive the object.

Shrunken or tattooed heads, items made by slaves endorsing slavery: all these collectables may not be pleasant, but they can unlock history and tell us how people lived and how they saw the world. We cannot censor or protect ourselves from it.

The Royal Museum for Central Africa in Brussels, built to show off King Leopold II’s Congo Free State for the 1897 World Exhibition, is full of artefacts celebrating his rape of the Congo which killed 10 million people.

In the entrance hall there are shocking sculptures of ‘gentle’ white priests with African boys bowed at their knee. Throughout the museum there are portraits, ceramics and even board-games which illustrate the contempt Leopold’s army held for the Congolese people, before they butchered them.

The permanent exhibition still reflects the way Europe regarded Africa in the nineteen-sixties. It is odious. And it should be, for that it how things were. Exposing it for what it was is all the more instructive.

Just go to the Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow, where you will see magnificent swords and armour on display, which were also instruments of violent oppression. They bring to life the terrifying physical aggression of war.

Society cannot live in fear of symbols and objects. Nor should we overstate their power. The Garlasco case exposes how the visual imagery and objects of the Nazi’s have come to dominate us. It is as if we are frightened of the relics associated with the German army. This presumes, rather insultingly, that people may easily fall under the spell of the Nazis who created them.

Before it became associated with the Nazis the swastika was used for thousands of years as a Hindu symbol of good luck and prosperity. In 1916 in Edmonton Canada, the ‘Swastikas’ was a girls hockey team. Here is a black and white photograph of the young team wearing sweaters emblazoned with the swastika. We should use the imagery more and rehabilitate it. That will diminish its power.

So let’s keep calm and carry on collecting.